VISI and Ski~Mojo

A basic desire to ski longer, when your body is physically too tired provided the inspiration for Owen Eastwood, a British Inventor who came up with the idea and design for the ski~mojo. The ski~mojo is a precision engineered piece of sporting equipment which is connected to the back of your ski boots and strapped to your shins supporting spring-loaded arms alongside your thighs. The ski~mojo supports up to 30% of your upper body weight and acts as a shock absorber for your legs, enhancing your control and balance on the slopes. “The ski~mojo reduces fatigue and thus provides the ability to ski all day. It's like the power steering on a car,” say the manufacturers, Kinetic Innovations Ltd. “You still need the skill to ski, the ski~mojo just makes it less tiring”

The project was in development for many years before Kinetic Innovations approached Senior & Dickson Limited, product design and molding specialists. “We wanted the keep the entire development and manufacture UK based, so it was important to find an innovative and understanding partner” states Eastwood.

"With a time frame of just 12 weeks, we have produced full surfaced models, complete electrode sets and 11 full production mold tools with 4 major tool modifications."

Karl Freeman, Senior Design Engineer

Using the very latest CAD/CAM technology from Vero Software, Karl Freeman, Senior Design Engineer, produced early CAD and STL models for rapid prototyping. “It was important to get a ‘feel’ for the product before moving into the production stages”, claims Freeman, who was equally positive about the software technology used. “We have been using VISI for nearly 3 years and the software has never proved itself more than on this single project. Using a combination of VISI Modelling, VISI Mould and VISI Machining, we have streamlined our entire design process. As there is only one working environment, there are no issues with data transfer and anyone from the drawing office or shop floor can open a design and extract the information they require. With a time frame of just 12 weeks, we have produced full surfaced models, complete electrode sets and 11 full production mold tools with 4 major tool modifications.”

“The development of the ski~mojo has been a collaboration of aesthetic design, functionality and manufacturability. The first design included aluminum die cast parts, but to reduce weight and cost, we are now using glass filled nylon (GFPA).” This is not the only change, continues Freeman, “The bottom straps and seat have been changed from sewn fabric to polyurethene and the calf support bracket has been re-designed with the geometry being twisted by an extra 10 degrees for an improved body fit.”

Once the CAD data has been prepared, it is passed directly to the shopfloor for toolpath creation. “We have a highly experienced toolroom,” claims Chris Hodgson, Technical Director of Senior & Dickson. “We run multiple seats of VISI Machining running on the shopfloor next to the Hurco Ultimax machines and allow the machinists to generate their own toolpaths. They are closest to the action and this allows them to make live decisions and have the biggest impact on machining productivity. Since the introduction of VISI, we have produced a time reduction of approximately 30% and improved the quality of our tool design. Without all of these improvements, it would have been impossible to remain competitive in our demanding market place”.

Commenting on the decision to work closely with Senior & Dickson, Kinetic Innovations states, “Senior offered exactly what we were looking for - a one stop service from product design through to molding and full assembly. The molding shop contains 12 Negri Bossi molding machines with clamping force ranges from 70 to 250 tonnes, as well as a number of ‘pick and place’ robots.” Eastwood concludes that “Senior & Dickson removed the pain from design and manufacture, exactly what the ski~mojo does for skiers”.